Why not privatize PBS?

Every few years, like clockwork, someone on the right says something about PBS. And every few years, a lot of people on the left react as if PBS were a sacred cow. This time, there are cries of illegality around a plan to diversify the viewpoints on PBS, which is long viewed as liberal by conservatives and mainstream by liberals.

The simple fact of the matter is that much of what PBS used to provide exclusively has been replaced by cable programming. But not all of it.

If you want documentaries, you have A&E, Discovery, and a host of others. But while A&E used to be about arts and entertainment, it isn't any more. Its once-unique programming doesn't stand out, at least not to me. The Learning Channel (TLC) may have once been about learning, but now it seems more about trying to squeeze the last ounce of juice out of the once-dominant "Trading Spaces" concept.

In other words, as competition has heated up along the cable/satelite spectrum, a certain boring homogeneity has descended. The sameness is threatening to make cable TV the same vast wasteland the broadcast TV used to be. How different are "Fear Factor" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"?

This represents a vast opportunity for the good folks at PBS. There are certain things they do better than anyone else. And as the satelite networks become variations on each other, those things will stand out more and more. Into this opening, PBS can charge boldly, or it can stay tethered to its current moorings.

Why not start by rolling out a commercial variant of PBS? Use the same programming, but sell ads. There are approximately 7000 channels on my DirecTV service that are devoted to things like ads for DirecTV or message indicating that the channel isn't being used. A commercial variant would make it possible to test market PBS in a commercial context, to see if it can work without pledge weeks and government funding.

If it works in a test, it can work for real. The niche that PBS can fill is that it could be the only network on TV that doesn't air a reality series or some kind of poker show. If the advocates of PBS are correct, there is a giant need for this kind of programming. If there is, and if the management of the new PBS can stick to their vision, then it should be possible to gradually move PBS to a less dependent state.

And if they are successful, and if they still seek out corporate partnerships, they could still offer some sense of the same programming in a commercial-free context. After all, it isn't Bob and Betty's hundred dollar gift that keeps PBS afloat.

In a world that features "The Real Gilligan's Island," something a little more substantial ought to be able to carve out a niche. Then we need not argue about it any more.

Night Prayer

Father, watch over us and refresh us tonight. Please inject us with the peace that can come through only You and grant us a continual audience with the Advocate and the Comforter, that we may carry Your peace into tomorrow.

We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

You are not alone.

A really mushy wish for a better tomorrow

So I am going to be soft and mushy--almost chick-like--with this post. And why not?

One of the things that makes us different from most of the rest of life that inhabits this earth is our ability to quickly learn from what goes on around us. Yes, we can be stunningly blind to things, but if you think about it, the amount of information that a human brain processes in a single day is amazing. And our ability to pick out patterns and react to them, though it may seem mundane, is really nothing short of miraculous.

And yet look at all the crap we put up with on a daily basis. And look at the fact that most of the crap is made by us for us. Crap is the waste product of human interaction. It's that waste product that can cause us to go to bed bone tired when we really haven't been physically exerted all day. And it's the same waste product that can cause futile wishes that the night go on forever, just so we don't have to get up to face the day.

And like it or not, each of us has ownership of some percentage of the crap mountain. Lord knows, I own my share.

But it's so unnecessary. It's not enough to disagree. We have to follow it with "idiot" or "moron" or worse. Our skins have become collectively thin. It's not just the people who sue at the drop of a hat, it's also the people who will judge everything about a person's life based on a few hundred words in a news article, or a momentary encounter with them.

The result is a sort of psychic toxin that pollutes the lake we all swim in.

It's got to stop. It has to for me, at least.

So today, which the cereal commercial tells me is the first day of the rest of my life, is the first day where I try to make a more appropriate contribution to the world in which I live. I'm not going to do so by pretending that I like everything. That is intellectual fraud. But I'm going to do it through effort and a serious attempt to be more thoughtful in how I process and respond to things.

I am doomed to periodic failure, that is sure. But any process with a worthwhile outcome involves failure along the way.

Wish me luck. And join me if you want. We may fail together, but hopefully in the end, it will be worth it.

Running the Race

Work has been a pain in the butt lately. It seems as if nothing works correctly, and even the things that do require two or three times the work they should. The things that should be perceived as positive and successful aren't. And it's starting to spill over into everything else. And I'm tired and cranky and just waiting for the wind to change.

In other words, I am alive.

The big things--the deaths and layoffs and the various dislocations of life--are typically very difficult. They are like a football team's loss on a Sunday, and they give you a whole week to sit there and comtemplate before the next big thing happens.

But there's also part of life that's like baseball. In baseball, if you get crushed, you have to play again the next day. And if you go into a long losing streak, the joy that you should get out of playing a game for a living evaporates into a burdensome grind.

And so it is. The big stuff is hard, to be sure, but so is the daily grinding sameness that can suck the initiative and life out of you. That's how most of life is lived, with little triumphs and endless grinding defeats. And though the defeats can numb you and take away the will to push forward, it is the response to that grind that is the real key.

It isn't easy. In fact, sometimes just getting up, just smiling when you feel like taking out your frustration on the nearest offender, sometimes these things are the hardest.

In one of his letters, Paul states that he has run the race. He has done his work and now he is content with what he has done. That contentedness, if you can achieve it, that's worth the price of the grinding, numbing, endless waves. It's worth hanging on for that brief instant when it all fits together and you realize that you have lived life well.

And it's the promise of that moment that can make it easier.

At least I hope it is.